Gujarat government rejects DG Vanzara’s resignation

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat government on Wednesday rejected the resignation submitted by IPS officer DG Vanzara, who is under custody for the last seven years for involvement in alleged fake encounter cases.

The Gujarat Cabinet said that Vanzara’s resignation cannot be accepted till the cases against him are not closed.

A 1987-batch IPS officer, Vanzara is the second officer after GL Singhal to resign citing neglect by the state government. Singal, an accused in the Ishrat Jahan case, had later helped in the probe.

Besides Vanzara and Singhal, three other senior police officers had taken on the Narendra Modi government in the recent past.

While former ADGP RB Sreekumar had submitted a damaging report on the 2002 Gujarat riots, DIG Rahul Sharma had passed on call records to the Nanavati Commission probing the post-Godhra riots in 2002 without informing the state administration. He was later put under suspension.

Another high-profile case is that of Sanjiv Bhatt who had taken on Narendra Modi and alleged before the Supreme Court that the Gujarat CM had told senior cops to allow “Hindus to vent anger against Muslims”.

The 10-page letter written by Vanzara in which he accused the Modi government of betraying the trust of loyal officers for political gains and to save its own skin from the CBI.

He had targeted former junior home minister of Gujarat, Amit Shah, of betrayal and treachery. Chiding Narendra Modi, Vanzara wrote that since loyal officers were not protected, he was not under no one-sided obligation to protect the “traitors” sitting in the government.